by kacy on 9/10/12, 8:15 PM with 38 comments
by VengefulCynic on 9/10/12, 9:19 PM
1) Do Gruber or Marco honestly believe that The Verge's ethics are questionable? Both have appeared on On The Verge and frequently link to The Verge... I really doubt they've suddenly developed serious misgivings about The Verge's standards of ethics. And if they have, sniping about it in links and Twitter comments is immature at best.
2) Does Topolsky need to defend the ethics of The Verge in light of such sniping? If so, I feel like a personal, emotional and vitriolic response isn't the way to go. Double down with an editorial piece that restates the ethical stance and integrity of The Verge or ignore the sniping. All this does is bring Topolsky down to Marco and Gruber's level.
Either someone has serious ethical misgivings or nobody does. If there's a serious beef here, I feel like full-on articles and some investigative journalism (2 of the 3 parties are journalists and Marco plays one on the internet) is in order. If not, all three need to grow the fuck up and start behaving like professionals.
update: added formatting
by cromwellian on 9/10/12, 9:04 PM
It would be an interesting experiment if every story about an Apple launch contained references about prior devices that did a feature first.
by fumar on 9/10/12, 8:59 PM
I will say, I liked it better when they did more robust stories. It seems they are trying to cover news more like a newspaper. At the beginning it felt more like a magazine.
by jiggy2011 on 9/10/12, 11:28 PM
The iphone looks like a rectangular case with a screen attached to one face, my android phone also looks like a rectangular case with a screen attached one face.
This isn't exactly the Sistine chapel.
by vondur on 9/10/12, 9:23 PM
by css771 on 9/10/12, 9:14 PM
by luriel on 9/10/12, 9:16 PM
by greedo on 9/10/12, 9:23 PM
EDIT: Grammar
by jaimzob on 9/10/12, 10:20 PM
And Joshua is being "bullied"? Really? Sensitive types, these bloggers.
by autotravis on 9/10/12, 9:28 PM
by greedo on 9/10/12, 9:48 PM
Ethically, things have changed a lot. Apple used to be extremely generous with hardware, but as they became more successful (roughly around 2004-2005) they were much slower in answering requests for editorial "loaners." The print industry changed a bit too, and it was unusual to be allowed to keep review gear. So "freebies" aren't acceptable anymore, nor should they be.
Editorial direction is where things can get crazy. I was writing for one publication, and in a review of SMB firewalls, I was told to include one make that was clearly not up to the standard of the three units in the review. I included an honest evaluation, and discovered that this manufacturer was an advertiser in the publication. Later on, review units were always specified in advance, and the publication quickly became a trade/advertisement journal instead of one with honest, critical reviews.
Online pubs have it worse. Their timeframes are even more compressed, and online readers are more fickle. Having an unbiased site is tough, and recognizing biases (as a pub editor) is harder.
by mtgx on 9/10/12, 8:46 PM
As for Gruber's claim, that might not be 100% false. I've noticed that after being heavily criticized by a minority of their readers who are very active and Microsoft fans, about "being too hard on Microsoft/Nokia", TheVerge usually tries to "make up for it", by compensating with other positives or writing more stories about Microsoft/Nokia/WP. They even seem to have one full time writer that only writes about these sort of stories lately (Tom Warren).
Whether these moves are good or bad, that's for anyone to judge. I just think they are a little too reactionary, and I'm not particularly fond of it. I think they'd be better off if they did what they thought it's best, although listening to some feedback I guess can't hurt.
And all that being said, I think TheVerge is one of the more "objective" and impartial tech news sites around, and I think they generally do their best to keep it that way, which is something I like about them.
by knonyia on 9/11/12, 1:21 AM
The other part of his post I take issue with is Josh's swipe at smaller blogs. As if only massive blogs are worthy of contributing to the conversation in a community.
by wethesheeple on 9/10/12, 9:27 PM
Blogs are a PR man's worst nightmare come true.
As useful as these products are, they also suck in so many ways. Such is the nature of most computers. Cheap to manufacture, limited lifetime, and it shows. They are 1/100th as useful as they could be. Damned if we should have to pretend Apple's or anyone's products are just "perfect", and similar products are inferior, cheap knock-offs (the stuff is all the same on the inside! made in the same factories), or that we should have to "upgrade" whenever the manufacturer (or a TV ad, newspaper, magazine or blog) instructs us to do so.
Warn callers from PR firms their conversations will be recorded and then upload some mp3's of the phone calls.
Now that would be integrity.
by doktrin on 9/11/12, 12:15 AM
by joshu on 9/11/12, 3:59 AM
Hacker News seemed to agree at the time: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4500574
So the lack of the mention (especially around the keyboard/trackpad - I remember looking at the pictures myself, somewhat aghast) is actually, you know, notable.
by snowwrestler on 9/10/12, 9:35 PM
The audiences are very different. A copied/not copied story is really an industry story, for people who want to keep track of the competition and status within the computer product industry. Whereas a review is for people who want to learn more about that particular product--people who might not have much sense of the industry dynamics at all.
In addition, it is Apple themselves, and Steve Jobs in particular, who have repeatedly made the point that the only thing that matters is whether the product is great. If better than the original inspiration, it will win. Apple will keep winning as long as its products are better than HP's.
by kin3tic on 9/10/12, 9:12 PM